List of Famous people born in Poland
Marcin Held
Marcin Held is a Polish mixed martial artist and currently competes in Professional Fighters League. He formerly competed in the Lightweight division of the Absolute Championship Berkut and Ultimate Fighting Championship. A professional MMA competitor since 2008, Held has competed frequently in his home country of Poland and is highly touted by the media, often being regarded as "the prodigy of Polish MMA". He fought in Bellator MMA from 2010 to 2016, challenging for the Bellator Lightweight Championship in 2015.
B. Traven
B. Traven was the pen name of a presumably German novelist, whose real name, nationality, date and place of birth and details of biography are all subject to dispute. One of the few certainties about Traven's life is that he lived for years in Mexico, where the majority of his fiction is also set—including The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1927). The film adaptation of the same name won three Academy Awards in 1948.
Daniel Libeskind
Daniel Libeskind is a Polish-American architect, artist, professor and set designer. Libeskind founded Studio Daniel Libeskind in 1989 with his wife, Nina, and is its principal design architect.
Robert Wiene
Robert Wiene was a film director of the silent era of German cinema. He is particularly known for directing the German silent film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and a succession of other expressionist films. Wiene also directed a variety of other films of varying styles and genres. Following the Nazi rise to power in Germany, Wiene, who was of Jewish descent, fled into exile.
Aleksander Doba
Aleksander Doba is a Polish kayaker known primarily for his long voyages crossing oceans. In 2010 and again in 2013 he kayaked across the Atlantic Ocean westward under his own power. The two voyages were the longest open-water kayak voyages ever made. He was named 2014 Adventurer of the Year by National Geographic. In 2017 he completed an eastward kayaking trip across the Atlantic.
Władysław IV Vasa
Władysław IV Vasa or Ladislaus IV of Poland was King of Poland, Grand Duke of Lithuania and titular King of Sweden, who ruled from 1632 until his death in 1648. Władysław IV was the eldest son of Sigismund III Vasa and his wife, Anna Habsburg of Austria.
Rupert Neudeck
Rupert Neudeck was known for his humanitarian work, especially with refugees. He started his career as a noted correspondent for Deutschlandfunk, a German public broadcaster. Later, he focused on assisting those fleeing conflict. He was noted for his role in assisting thousands of refugees from Vietnam in the late 1970s. Neudeck was a winner of numerous awards, including the Theodor Heuss Medal, the Bruno Kreisky Prize for Services to Human Rights, the Erich Kaestner Award and the Walter Dirks Award, and was co-founder of both the Cap Anamur and Green Helmets humanitarian organizations.
Piotr Beczała
Piotr Beczała is a Polish operatic tenor.
Piotr Zieliński
Piotr Sebastian Zieliński is a Polish professional footballer who plays as a midfielder for Italian club Napoli and the Poland national team. During his football career he played for such clubs as Zagłębie Lubin, Udinese, and Empoli. He was selected to play in Poland national football team at the 2016 UEFA European Championships in France as well as the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia.
Marie Leszczyńska
Maria Karolina Zofia Felicja Leszczyńska, also known as Marie Leczinska, was a Polish princess and Queen consort of France from 1725 until 1768 by marriage to Louis XV. The daughter of King Stanislaus I of Poland and Catherine Opalińska, her 42-year service was the longest of any queen in French history. A devout Roman Catholic throughout her life, Marie was popular among the French people for her generosity and introduced many Polish customs to the royal court at Versailles. She was the grandmother of Louis XVI, Louis XVIII and Charles X of France.